VRE

Just before Christmas a follow-up on that what bothers us most: patients dying because of antibiotic resistance. I previously tried, see here, to disentangle from the ECDC study (33.000 deaths per year in Europe) how they got to 206 AMR casualties in the Netherlands and ended with a recommendation to not “focus too much on the absolute numbers as they may not be very precise.” With Valentijn Schweitzer I spent some more time in the 200 pages supplement, only to find out – in the end – that the Americans do these kind of studies much better. Continue reading →

Last year (Jan 17, 2017) I blogged on an excellent pragmatic cluster-randomized crossover study in which 4 patient room cleaning strategies were tested for their effectiveness to reduce acquisition of bacterial carriage for the incoming patients. The authors’ conclusion was that “enhanced terminal room disinfection decreases the risk of pathogen acquisition”, which I interpreted as “Not for C. diff, may be for MRSA and yes for VRE.” Now the same group published the effects of these interventions on infection/colonization with these pathogens in ALL patients admitted to the hospital during the study period, see. Authors’ conclusion this time: “Enhanced terminal room disinfection with UV in a targeted subset of high-risk rooms led to a decrease in hospital-wide incidence of C difficile and VRE.” Really? Continue reading →

That’s what the WHO stated this week, and it was based on a study, in Lancet Planetary Health. In most news items that I saw animal antibiotic use was directly linked to human infections caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria. A journalist even asked if eating meat was safe. Although most of us (including me) support reduction of unnecessary antibiotic use, it’s worth reading this excellent meta-analysis, initiated by WHO. Did this study answer the burning research question “to what extent does animal antibiotic use influence infections in humans?“ Continue reading →

Like this:

To me, VRE is an old love that never let me down. In 1995 (!) I studied its epidemiology in Chicago (using PFGE), and we described it as the “triple-threat bug”: a gut colonizer like Gram-negatives, a skin colonizer like MRSA and an environmental contaminator like C. diff. A new study in CID, using WGS, illustrates its complex epidemiology. After 20 years, that complexity seems explained, and now we can no longer avoid the question what to do with VRE. Keep on cherishing its “feared pathogen status” like MRSA, or accept that it is just something like MRSE, and stop bothering. Continue reading →

What an excellent start of 2017. A great study from the USA today in Lancet: In a pragmatic cluster-randomized crossover study they tested 4 patient room cleaning strategies on the effectiveness to reduce acquisition with relevant bacteria for the incoming patients. The conclusion states that “enhanced terminal room disinfection decreases the risk of pathogen acquisition.” Yet, this paper is so “data-dense” that you must read the methods (and supplements) to get the picture. In one shot: Not for C. diff, may be for MRSA and yes for VRE. Continue reading →

…you are not alone, if the answer to this question is ‘nothing special’, based on survey published in ARIC! Dale Fisher’s team in Singapore put together a simple survey, asking the global IPC community what measures they have in place to prevent the transmission of VRE. There was a huge degree of variability, ranging from ‘nothing special’ to ‘the kitchen sink’!